(TNS) - As California hurries to reopen stores, offices, restaurants and more this week, another rush is on behind-the-scenes.

State health officials have launched an unprecedented effort to train thousands of front-line, county-level workers to act as a firewall to stop the coronavirus from roaring back this fall.
Gov. Gavin Newsom calls them his “army of disease detectives.”

Commonly known in the public health world as communicable-disease “contact tracers,” this ad hoc group will serve as community strike teams in each county, working on tight deadlines to stop individual infections from turning into major outbreaks.

A new report titled, “Strong Social Distancing Measures in the United States Reduced the COVID-19 Growth Rate” finds that steps taken to reduce the spread of corononavirus by state and local governments have had a major impact. The results imply that by April 27, the number of cases would have been 35 times higher without any of the measures — suggesting the U.S. would have reported 35 million (rather than 1 million) COVID-19 cases.

Authors of the new study — Charles Courtemanche and Aaron Yelowitz, both professors at the University of Kentucky’s Gatton College of Business and Economics; Anh Le, a doctoral student at University of Kentucky; Josh Pinston, a professor at the University of Louisville; and Joseph Garuccio, a doctoral student at Georgia State — evaluated measures taken by states and counties across the country.

California has evacuation plans for earthquakes, floods, mudslides and, of course, wildfires, but what if one of those disasters occurs as the state is dealing with the coronavirus outbreak when everyone is being urged to stay home?

State and local officials are trying to figure that out.

Global warming will lead to growing intensity and frequency of severe weather events, rising losses, as well as greater uncertainty in the assessment of these events by the insurance industry, which could make some weather risks uninsurable, according to a report published by Swiss Re.

“Failure to take immediate, tangible action to confront warming temperatures could lead to climate systems reaching irreversible tipping points,” said the sigma report titled “Natural catastrophes in times of economic accumulation and climate change.”

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which is responsible for workplace safety regulations, certain workers are at higher risk than others for exposure to the coronavirus and the disease COVID-19.

Nurses, doctors, lab and morgue workers are among those at highest risk.

Lawyers for Pacific Gas & Electric said the utility can’t commit to hiring hundreds more tree trimmers in the way that a federal judge wants to cut the risk of starting more catastrophic wildfires in California.

U.S. District Judge William Alsap ordered the utility last month to add at least 1,100 more tree trimmers to help prevent trees and branches from falling onto its power lines and igniting. The judge is overseeing PG&E’s criminal probation imposed after its natural gas lines blew up a San Francisco Bay Area neighborhood and killed eight people in 2010. He has taken a strong interest in PG&E’s safety record after the company’s power lines started a series of wildfires that killed 130 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

About 50,000 homes and businesses across Northern California were without power on Wednesday during the latest planned outage instituted by utility Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to guard against risk of wildfire during dry, windy weather.

The precautionary shutoffs included considerably fewer customers than originally projected as a spokeswoman for the utility said improving weather conditions allowed them to keep the lights on in many areas.

(TNS) — More than 900,000 people in 25 California counties — including every Bay Area county but San Francisco — could lose power starting Wednesday as windy, dry conditions will greatly increase fire risk.

PG&E said Monday that 303,000 homes and businesses — each one roughly equivalent to 3 people — could be impacted as the company tries to stop its power lines from starting more fires. In the Bay Area, about 115,000 homes and businesses, equivalent to 345,000 people, could be impacted.

PG&E Corp. is warning a quarter-million homes and businesses could lose power in northern California starting Wednesday as high winds return to the region.

A fire weather watch has been issued by the National Weather Service for parts of northern California from late Tuesday night to Thursday morning. PG&E said in a statement overnight it may cut power to customers in the North Bay, North Valley and the foothills of the Sierra Nevada due to the forecast.

(TNS) - Last month’s power shutdowns by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. left nagging questions about Marin County’s communications system and whether senior housing facilities in the county are prepared for the next shutdown.

On Oct. 27, when PG&E switched off electricity to most of Marin, nearly 50 percent of the county’s cell phone transmission sites failed. The next day 57 percent of the cell sites, 134 transmitters, were down in Marin, and the day after that more than 35 percent of the sites remained offline. No other county in the state had its communications system disrupted to this extent by the power outage.